LEGO Mineral Collection designer’s passion shines through in the set

The passionate fan designer behind 21362 Mineral Collection had some specific requests and concerns during the development of the LEGO Ideas model.

Builders looking to pick up an altogether different LEGO Ideas set will be able to do so next month when 21362 Mineral Collection launches. The 880-piece fan-designed model drops on October 1, 2025, and includes a selection brick-built rocks including reddish-pink rhodochrosite, purple amethyst, blue fluorite, golden pyrite, watermelon tourmaline and tangerine quartz.

In a recent interview with Brick Fanatics and other LEGO fan media, Dario del Frate discussed the thinking behind his original 10K submission, some of the specific requests he made of the LEGO Ideas team behind 21362 Mineral Collection and his worries while the project was being developed.

“I was looking for something with a very vibrant palette,” Dario explained, “I guess everybody in the community loves transparent bricks, right? And that’s the beginning of the idea.

“But then some minerals are very, very iconic. I asked, let’s try and keep these small quartz, that are from a mine in Colorado. This is an extremely rare, super-expensive mineral. Then, pyrite is typically from the island of Elba in Italy. We also tried to see if we could do it in chrome gold, but it was not possible.”

“If you go to London, to the Natural History Museum,” continued Dario, “at the end of the mineral room where I took the picture that’s in the booklet, there’s a vault. There are, like, five minerals there and one is basically the exact same rhodochrosite. Well, much, much nicer, honestly, because it’s kind of pink, red. It’s amazing. It’s beautiful.”

Despite his enthusiasm for the 21362 Mineral Collection project, Dario was also a little hesitant that the LEGO Ideas team might make too many changes to his original submission.

“I mean, I was worried because, you know, there’s LEGO Ideas that were changed radically,” he said of some previous 10K submissions, “and I thought, well, who knows? It’s LEGO at the end of the day. It’s their decision, but they kept the concept absolutely intact and improved it, and they listened to my input, so I’m very truly happy.”

21362 Mineral Collection is due to launch on October 1, 2025 and will be priced at £54.99 / $59.99 / €59.99, with pre-orders for the LEGO Ideas set live right now.

For a deeper dive into 21362 Mineral Collection, be sure to check out our review of the LEGO Ideas model here.

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